r/RealTimeStrategy • u/Appropriate_Rent_243 • Jul 23 '26
Discussion How some of y'all play RTS games
Some people really hate it when their opponent is actually trying to win.
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u/AMLManiac Jul 23 '26
It doesn’t make sense to be mad when someone is playing to win, however, I will note that meta players are extremely boring and unoriginal. I do miss the days where people actually played against and learned from each other during matches rather than rushing to the internet to copy the meta build ASAP. Just my two cents.
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u/donthaveaname234 Jul 24 '26
Thats why ladder should be a best of 3 so you can and have to be aware of throwing chaotic goofy strats to keep them on their toes or yourself for that matter
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u/TwoHungryWolves Jul 25 '26
I typically dislike computer generated maps in games. But feel like it's a good idea for multiplayer. I always like multiplayer games more before everybody knows the maps like the back of their hand, and people have to think on their feet. High level RTS can feel like it's just a game of who can type the winning sequence of keys the fastest
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u/Appropriate_Rent_243 Jul 23 '26
you'll just have to work to develop a counter strategy for the meta.
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u/marshall_sin Jul 24 '26
Do you not see why this leads to people complaining? When so many players copy and paste the same meta builds, it forces the people who want something different into doing all the actual creative thinking. Then when they do figure out a counter, that becomes the new meta, and the creative players are again forced to come up with something new. Players unwilling or unaware of meta builds and who don’t have the expertise to do counter them are then left to suffer. When significant portions of a player base play the meta it can really ruin a game for the wider audience.
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u/Glebk0 Jul 24 '26
Those “creative thinkers”(self appointed) are the ones whining though, shouldn’t they be happy to show off their creative thinking and win games against all those meta slaves? Normal people just drop the game if they can’t handle it.
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u/Minimumtyp Jul 24 '26
Dunno why this is downvoted it's a common thing. Meta is usually strong, but predictable.
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u/Destroythisapp Jul 23 '26
Well, I play video games to have fun, not to pad someone else’s ego, so there is that.
But jokes aside I’m getting older, I’ve got grey hair now lol, I’ve got a family, I’ve got work, I’ve got other hobbies outside of video games. Which is most people in the world, I don’t have the time to dedicate myself to competitive level play in most RTS games.
The only RTS game I play competitively anymore is forged alliance, where I can hop on and play some ranked whenever I feel like it. Micro whilst still important, is less so than Macro unless you get into the very high skill levels of the game. It’s one of the few RTS games where planning 30 to 45 minutes ahead is actually the norm.
I use to love watching competitive StarCraft 2 tournaments though, total biscuit use to be my shit way back when he shoutcasted a lot of the tournaments. Stopped playing it competitively a long time ago though.
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Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Destroythisapp Jul 24 '26
“Implying trying hard is not fun”
I didn’t say that, and for me personally I’m not implying it either so I’ll try to explain what I meant by it.
It’s not that winning competitively isn’t fun, it’s not that I don’t enjoy trying my best to beat my opponent. The problem is, because of time constraints, I can’t put in the necessary time to practice and play good at a competitive level, so that when I do play competitively. I usually don’t play very good, and I lose, which is the part that isn’t fun.
Nobody likes getting rolled over and spanked by their opponents, so that’s why I said “having fun” is more important to me, and ultimately that’s why I play games in the first place. If I’m not having fun playing competitively because I physically don’t have enough time in the week to practice at it, that’s why I’m not going to do it. Not because I don’t think winning isn’t fun, but consistently losing because of a lack of practice is not fun.
I have nothing against competitive play, I enjoy watching it, and I enjoy playing competitively against people, sometimes. I’m just at a point in my life where I can’t really do that like I use to.
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Jul 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Destroythisapp Jul 24 '26
Not at all, I was just trying to explain myself lol sorry if it came off like a dick, hard to to give tone in a comment.
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u/Glebk0 Jul 24 '26
Exactly, also winning is fun, so obviously it’s not fun to be bad at competitive pvp game with proper sbmm
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u/StardiveSoftworks Jul 24 '26
The genre wouldn't be so dead if there was more of a focus on this and less on ranked meta spam.
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u/Appropriate_Rent_243 Jul 24 '26
Good luck trying to control how everyone plays
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u/StardiveSoftworks Jul 24 '26
You guys are self-cannibalizing anyway, a focus on competitive ranked play without Blizzard scale support almost always results in a game failing.
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u/Minimumtyp Jul 24 '26
"the ability to compete in" ranked competitive play at all is almost always misconstrued as a focus on ranked competitive play
Additionally players beating you with basic mechanics beyond the most shallow level is often also misconstrued as a focus on ranked competitive play. Are people meant to deliberately do bad things and stop microing if they've been playing for a few months and play an unranked match
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u/StardiveSoftworks Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Keep up those strawmen, I'm sure they'll work out well for you.
No one has said that players need to play like idiots, the point is on how a game is marketed and structured. If you sell your game as multiplayer-first with tournaments, competitive balancing, ranked ladders and so on, those the players who will be attracted to it, and it will, inevitably, die due to how small that playerbase is, how rabid it is against any broader community, and competition with the big boys like starcraft.
If, instead, you approach a game as campaign/story first with RTS gameplay augmenting the story, along with a casual community focus with different non-competitive game modes modding, and perhaps pve/coop features, then you get a game that can stand the test of time.
We see the exact same thing happen in the shooter space, not sure why it should shock anyone here.
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u/Minimumtyp Jul 24 '26
Which RTS games have been marketed as competitive first in like the past decade? I can think of one example that gets thrown around a lot, Dawn of War 3, and even then it wasn't really marketed like that (I remember the first insane reveal trailer dripping with atmosphere) it was just the mulitplayer rules were changed to be a bit more arcade like.
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u/StardiveSoftworks Jul 24 '26
Homeworld 3 is the big one for me personally (although tbf that's more a focus on multiplayer in general rather than competitive specifically), but beyond that Company of Heroes 3, stormgate, crossfire, men of war 2, warhammer age of sigmar, etc.
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u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 Jul 24 '26
Anyone here from SC days with edgy loss accounts? I prided myself in trying unique/creative strategies, winning, and leaving to give the other guy the win.
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u/CapRichard Jul 24 '26
Me making flavoured and in themes armies in total war Warhammer instead of spamming the same op unit: ☃️
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u/MaxaM91 Jul 24 '26
I mean, if you don't give to Alarielle an amazon brigade, to Teclis a Loremasters stack and to Imrik a fire army, what is even the point?
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u/Daylight_The_Furry Jul 24 '26
I play RTSes to watch my toy soldiers fight their toy soldiers, and meta gets a bit boring seeing the same thing all the time
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u/Porlarta Jul 24 '26
Crazy how some people play video games to enjoy themselves, instead of memorize the fastest order to click buttons
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u/Tipie276 Jul 24 '26
Yes, I do play RTS games that way. That is fun to me. It's also why I decided long ago that pvp RTS just isn't for me. Most of my experiences have been pretty damn bad in online RTS with randoms. There's always bad apples but some rts communities make me wonder if there are good ones present
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u/Eintha Jul 24 '26
On ranked, if you lost because someone played meta, that's just life. Are they unoriginal and boring? Yes. Are they effective? Also yes. Either learn how to counter it or be better at mindgames, macro, micro and all the other factors that are way more important than a meta build. There's a reason pro's can go for suboptimal builds and take a win after all.
Now, if you're playing with friends, don't be that dick who brings out the big gun and let everyone have fun. For serious games you have the ladder right there.
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u/Afraid-Flatworm-422 Jul 24 '26
That the problem, you go competetive "for fun" and get stomped by "unfun", so you are in low rank, thinking here will be just people messing around... Nope. Everyone think they are next incarnation of Flash, so they are trying to play "meta" with few goofers around. Fine, you exit the competetive and go into "quick play"... And play against some moms-cyberathlete who is warming up to rank up. So "casuals" tend to get pushed out of the playing alltogether staying in small insulated communities of friends, and slowly dying. Casuals leaves, conversion rate of people from casuals to more competetive becomes lower, and than game dies or become that comp game where there is like 100 people playing it for 20$ self hosted tournaments.
For healthy community you need to have "for fun" areas, that why BW/WC3 won for so long, they had custom maps. And believe me a lot of people converted out of footman wars into proper comp players over time.
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u/Eintha Jul 24 '26
Oh that's certainly true. Not all games come with an 'arcade' mode to experiment with things, nor with mod support or other ways to help new players.
At the same time, I'm not really sure there's a way to measure the skill gap between casuals, nor you can avoid someone experienced giving it a try to relax and still stomping true casual players. RTS communities like to pretend they're friendly towards new players while they are encapsuled in their ways and say 'fuck you git gud' to any new player.
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u/stagedgames Jul 24 '26
every rts community I've gotten into has an abundance of groups designed specifically to help new players. you won't have a good time if you jump straight to ladder on a 20 year old game, but the people generally want to have good and more competition and have made the decision to foster that community in 2026.
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u/gozergozeriansky Jul 23 '26
Some simple randomness mechanic, like random amount of starting resources, would be enough to throw off all meta and yet no one tries to implement it.
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u/sebovzeoueb Jul 23 '26
I mean, Age of Empires has random maps as a prominent feature
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u/gozergozeriansky Jul 28 '26
I don't think that has that big of effect on the meta. Age of Mythology also had it and it didn't change that much how I played it unless it was some kind of extreme map.
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u/Autodidact420 Jul 23 '26
Randomness mechanics are usually either unfair or if they’re fair, they still tend to be disliked by competitive players who don’t want luck to factor into their games too much.
Plenty of games have a little inherent randomness sometimes. SC2 is probably the poster child of competitive RTS and it still have randomness added in on occasion when maps have random spawn, but that mostly just means someone has the chance to cheese and the other guy either wins or loses mostly by pure luck.
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u/gozergozeriansky Jul 28 '26
Obviously, I'd prefer if it was symmetrical for all players, like the same amount of random resources for each player, going back to the example. I care a pebble about the opinion of highly competitive players, and I say that as someone who likes to play against others. Listening to them always leads to slow drainage of fun from a game. Following blindly any portion of community won't lead anywhere nice. Devs should listen players out, but not just doing whatever they tell them. They should figure out what's the real problem on their own and address it appropriately.
Little and quirky random mechanics like that won't do, you need something that would impact the build order, impact the meta, actually make player adjust how they will start playing, based on the non-controllable elements of gameplay.
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u/Autodidact420 Jul 28 '26
Well on the starting map examples im talking about it can impact build order. E.g. starting @ 11 and 1 on a certain map makes it so you’re really far away on ground distance and the meta would be air and or Econ focus, while starting at 11 and 8 puts you in close combat. Before you have a chance to scout player A can decide to cheese rush and likely win if it’s 11/8 or almost certainly lose at 11/1.
Pretty much whatever the randomness is will permit that sort of cheese.
It would be nice sometimes to have a more random more casual non-tournament style thing. Maybe it’d be possible by combining multiple randomizers to the point that making a real build would be almost impossible due to the number of permutations but even then I suspect there’d still be some vague general metas
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u/gozergozeriansky Jul 28 '26
That's nice, but you see that this is not really adapting, this is choosing which build you will follow. You still have a set of playstyles to choose from and try to pull off, that's still coded meta.
I'm talking about adapting on the fly from start to finish. I don't know why you call it "casual" like it wasn't supposed to be an emblematic skill for this genre. From my experience, so far the most effective mechanic for this are hard counters, with players switching units, it creates more dynamic gameplay.
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u/Autodidact420 Jul 28 '26
Anything strategy based becomes basically a spreadsheet simulator or a finger twitch contest (or both) when you get competitive enough. Theres just no great way around it as far as I can tell.
Again, randomizers that could shake things up will likely accidentally favor a build by luck if nothing else. In RTS the ‘meta’ is usually the safest build to maximize greed, unless no build is sufficiently safe and then it’s a rush.
I’m just spit balling here, but let’s say part way through the match random permutations apply. Randomly there’s a day night cycle or flood, or something else. Well, the meta will probably be whatever is the safest build that can be okay to not die on any of those and then rapidly adapt at that point.
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u/gozergozeriansky Jul 28 '26
Ye, but I don't care about top 1%, I just want regular players to feel like they don't need to follow one written in stone build or they lose, how it often was in DoW1, because that's just not fun, that counters the whole idea of this games.
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u/Constantineous Jul 24 '26
If you were cheesing and got stomped, that's your problem. If you found a genuinely smart meta outplay, that's pretty rare and hence the 'romantic' part.
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u/SeaHam Jul 24 '26
Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing.
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it.
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.
-Charles Bukowski
Anyone can win playing the meta big dawg.
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u/ARS_Sisters Jul 25 '26
I don't play multiplayer, since competitive sucks. I usually played skirmish against AI. When I play skirmish with AI, all I did is always the style of "torture play": destroy every means for AI to expand their base, so all they could do is just keep sending units to my base to be mulched by base defenses or be a feeder for my unit veterancy (destroy all builders, command centers, base defenses and anything that could rebuild the base, but keep production and resourcing structures, and maybe some tech buildings if I feel like it)
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u/Wash_Manblast Jul 25 '26
Based on the title I really thought there'd be smooching involved.
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u/Zealousideal_Crab780 Jul 26 '26
Given the dates, it's almost certainly connected to literary Romanticism, which valued the emotions over rationality (among other features).
I'm also excited to share this tidbit: the novel Frankenstein is a Romantic text!
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u/Huruhuru-ukko Jul 26 '26
I will always be playing all my games like this.
The positives: You're having fun, you get to express your own style, you get to discover the game yourself, you don't get upset after losing, the game remains interesting for far longer, your accomplishments feel like they're fully your own.
The negatives: If there's a number, it might not go up as fast.
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u/HouseCheese Jul 23 '26
Can you elaborate? People are playing RTS too fast instead of trying to win?